What could you accomplish in that amount of time? The authors of the books featured below set themselves formidable goals and a single year in which to achieve them. For example, Julie Powell attempted to make all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Gretchen Rubin did a year-long happiness project – and then she did another to find more happiness at home. Maya Van Wegenen applied advice from a book on popularity written for teenagers in the 1960s to see if the suggestions would still work today. Kjersten Gruys vowed to avoid looking at her own reflection in a mirror for a year and Sara Bongiorni challenged herself to go that long without buying anything made in China. Their stories are among the year-long project memoirs we’ve gathered together for your reading pleasure.

Year-Long Memoirs

Recounts how the author escaped the doldrums of an unpromising career and lackluster Queens apartment by mastering every recipe in Julia Child's 1961 classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a year-long endeavor of humor and accomplishment that transformed her life.

Chronicles the author's year spent testing the edicts of conventional wisdom to assess their actual potential for improving life, describing how she engaged in various activities from getting more sleep and singing to her children to starting a blog and imitating a spiritual master.

In the year leading up to her thirtieth birthday, the author, a former media blogger, turns to Eleanor Roosevelt for guidance as she spends the last months of her twenties pursuing a "year of fear" during which she embarks on many adventures.

A working mom describes her efforts to knit a famous rare and difficult pattern known as the "Mary Tudor," a project challenged by hectic family schedules, career demands, and the unavailability of key materials.

Documents a high schooler's year-long attempt to change her social status from misfit to member of the "in" crowd by following advice in a 1950s popularity guide, an experiment that triggered embarrassment, humor, and surprises.

The creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal details the one-year experiment with saying "yes" that transformed her life, revealing how accepting unexpected invitations she would have otherwise declined enabled powerful benefits.

The popular television star recounts the year he spent teaching at Philadelphia's largest high school, the challenges he encountered in keeping students engaged, and his memories of posing disciplinary challenges to his own instructors as a teenager.

A Cornell graduate explores the hoarding phenomenon as reflected by such cultural examples as Hoarders and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up while sharing the personal story of how she organized a single room in her house that had been overtaken by psychological clutter.

Traces the author's decision to quit her job and travel the world for a year after suffering a midlife crisis and divorce, an endeavor that took her to three places in her quest to explore her own nature, experience fulfillment, and learn the art of spiritual balance.

More Year-Long Memoir Projects ...

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About The Author

Sarah Hunt is a Substitute Circulation Clerk for the Toledo Lucas County Library System. She enjoys reading mysteries, especially cozies and historical mysteries, as well as books about cooking, health, parenting, home decor, gardening, crafts, and style.